Resaerch paper

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Created for LING-153 by Ferey | Fall 2019

Research Paper #1 – The Assignment

For this assignment, you will write a research report. The topic of this report is either your selection

from the menu of topics suggested by your instructor or a topic selected by you and approved by your

instructor. Remember that a research report requires that you gather and present facts. It does not

require that you analyze the facts or make an argument about what the facts mean.

Purpose and weighting

The purpose of the first research project is to give you an opportunity to practice the research process

from beginning to end.

Weighting (=grading importance)

Grading is weighted equally between your participation in the research process and the final paper that

you construct. Your participation in the research process for the first paper is worth 10% of your overall

grade; research paper #1 is also worth 10% of your overall grade.

Requirements

Your research paper must be presented in APA format. Required elements are:

 A title page

 A minimum of 500 words of content (=a minimum of two pages typed and double-spaced)

 A maximum of three pages of typed and double-spaced content

 A reference list

Your sources much consist of:

 (at least) one encyclopedia retrieved from the PSU Library website

 (at least) one relevant and readable source from EBSCOhost (the PSU Library databases)

 a total of three reliable sources located via the PSU library

If you choose to also use a source located via Google search, you may, however, it must be an additional

(=a fourth) source. In other words, it cannot replace the encyclopedia or the database-derived sources.

If you do not know how to evaluate sources for reliability, I strongly discourage you from using Google

search for this project.

Assessment

In addition to confirming that your paper includes all the items from the checklists above, I will also

assess the degree to which your paper meets each of the following criteria:

 The paper is organized in a way that is appropriate to the topic;

 The writing is clear and easy to understand;

 The level of vocabulary and the complexity of the grammar are commensurate with your

language proficiency;

 The mechanics of your citations are highly accurate;

 The source material cited supports the topic you selected

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Although some of these criteria are difficult for students to self-assess, here are some questions you can

ask yourself about your own work that will help guide you in understanding how well you have achieved

in each of the areas.

 The paper is organized in a way that is appropriate to the topic;

Ask yourself: How did I organize my paper? Why? If it is clear, that is good! If not, you might

want to consider your organization a bit more.

 The writing is clear and easy to understand;

Find a reader! Pick someone who 1) is a better writer than you and 2) is socially capable of

being honest with you about your strengths AND weaknesses. Ask this person to read your

paper. Ask them if any part of your paper is confusing.

Consider asking them if they can tell how you organized your paper – which will also help you

with the previous criteria. If your reader tells you that something is confusing – revise it. If

there is time, ask them to read it again. If you have not done so already, buy this kind person a

coffee. 

 The level of vocabulary and the complexity of the grammar are commensurate with your

language proficiency;

Edit. Your. Work. Most failures in this area are not due to lack of ability but instead are due to

lack of planning, which leads to lack of time, which leads to lack of editing. At least once, PRINT

and then READ your entire paper OUT LOUD. Do this in private so people don’t think you are

crazy. It will amaze you how many of your own errors will become apparent to you when you

slow down and read your writing out loud.

 The mechanics of your citations are highly accurate;

Use the handout APA Citation Workshop to confirm that you are doing citations correctly. If you

need more help, ask Eowyn. It’s her job to help you!

 The source material cited supports the topic you selected

This means that the source information is relevant to the topic. If you are writing about the

effects of the Rana Plaza disaster, then you should probably not be using a source about the

impact of World War II on the rise of the House of Chanel.

In other words, is there a nice, strong, and obvious connection between your source information

and your topic? The answer should be YES. Keep in mind this DOES NOT MEAN that ALL of the

information in the source is relevant to your topic – just that the information you cited is

relevant. To give another example, if you are writing about the influence of social media on

elections, you might have a long, wide-ranging encyclopedia article about the history of social

media. Within that article, the encyclopedia may state the year that Facebook was founded and

also the year when it reached benchmark levels of use among the general population. The last

fact would be relevant and would support the topic you selected, even if there is a lot of other

information in the source that doesn’t really matter to you for this particular paper.